ONCE, when asked what had brought him most difficulty during his premiership, the patrician Harold Macmillan - whose touch earned him the soubriquet "Supermac" - replied: "Events, dear boy."

Yet, more than 35 years on, we see his successor at No.10, on the eve of his third year of office, basking in the longest honeymoon of popularity any Prime Minister has had, seemingly impervious to harm by "events."

And, yet, there have been plenty.

Twice he has ordered British forces to war; there have been embarrassments like the Formula One affair and his henchman Peter Mandelson's downfall and backdowns such as that over cuts in benefits for single mothers.

But Tony Blair and Labour seem unassailable - as popular as ever as the second anniversary approaches.

"Supertone," then? Or could it be that, as yet, he had not had any Opposition to contend with?

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